GETTING TO THE STARTING LINE
Karl Dakin
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
This Instant Funding newsletter was not published in the last two days due to a platform update creating a technical problem.
QUICK CALENDAR
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, Successful Funding show, 8 am Mountain Time / 10 am Eastern Time
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, Don Cohen show, 9 am Mountain Time / 11 am Eastern Time
No Community Revitalization show next week – HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
?FUNDING HAPPENINGS
TradePubs is making available a free copy of the ebook The Art of Changing Course: A 3-Step Strategy to Get Unstuck and Solve Your Real Problems. Author @Chris Ruden provides a clear-cut process that walks readers through digestible, actionable stages to get unstuck, allowing you to rise beyond simple awareness of the desire to change and become the person you truly want to be. Backed by numerous psychological principles, management techniques, and organizational change theories,?The Art of Changing Course?focuses on helping readers make three distinct shifts: from subconscious to conscious, conscious to communicated, and finally, communicated to broadcasted. You may obtain a free copy at Download.
?ASK CAP
CAP, my artificial intelligence (AI) avatar, is available on my website 24/7/365 to answer your questions for free on matters related to funding.
?I developed CAP with a license from Knowledge Avatars to answer frequent questions about funding and to save myself time to answer the harder questions.
?I asked CAP,
“What steps or actions must a small business take to prepare to launch their capital campaigns?”
CAP responded:
“To prepare for launching a capital campaign, a small business should take the following steps: 1. Define Objectives: Clearly outline the funding goals and how the capital will be used to achieve business growth.
2. Financial Analysis: Ensure robust financial statements are in place, including projections and historical data to demonstrate financial health and potential for investors.
3. Business Plan: Update or create a comprehensive business plan that includes a detailed market analysis, competitive landscape, and strategic growth plans.
4. Funding Sources: Identify potential funding sources that align with the business’s goals, whether through equity, debt, or other financing methods.
5. Valuation: Determine the business valuation to offer fair equity terms to investors.
6. Pitch Materials: Develop compelling pitch materials including a pitch deck, executive summary, and other essential documents to present to potential investors.
7. Legal and Compliance: Ensure all legal structures and documents are in order, complying with relevant securities laws and regulations.
8. Build Relationships: Start networking and building relationships with potential investors, advisors, and mentors well before the campaign launch.
9. Marketing Strategy: Create a marketing and communication strategy to effectively convey the business story to the right audience.
10. Team Readiness: Assemble a capable team and possibly advisors to support various campaign activities and manage investor relations. Preparation and strategic planning are critical to a successful capital campaign.”
?FUNDING POINT – GETTING TO THE STARTING LINE
In the last two Funding Point articles, I discussed the questionable strategy of pitching everyone to make an investment and pointing out the time limits that exist in such an approach to raising funding. In addition to the time of pitching by knocking on doors, there is the additional time required for an entrepreneur to get their business ready to raise funding. All too often, getting ready will require a mountain of work to create new information and messages while backfilling the performance of record keeping and reporting. This body of work may be much greater than the performance of the capital campaign. This body of work may greatly delay the start or launch of the capital campaign so much that the opportunity to raise funding may be missed.
?As CAP stated above, there are several things included in getting ready to receive capital.
?In summary, the organization seeking funding is telling a story. The story should include where they have been, where they are today, and where they forecast they will be in the future.
?The story should read like a fairy tale, in which the hero/heroine of the story is the person writing the check. This, like magic words, opens the door to the organization achieving its goals and sharing the rewards of its success with the investors.
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?The story is told from the perspective of the investor, the customer, and the management team, identifying all the players with their backgrounds to explain how the story fits together.
?The story narrative is paralleled with financial information – books and records and cash flow projections.
?Within the story will be all of the information that meets the needs of the investor to make a fully-informed decision – the good, the bad, and hopefully more good.
?In authoring the story, information is needed to identify and target the investor so that the story is complete and motivates the investor to act in their own self-interest.
?The story should manifest the capital strategy and campaign plan, demonstrating the capability and competence of the management team as well as its respect for the investor candidates.
?It is impossible to accomplish this by simply offering equity ownership to anyone who looks like they have money.
?It will be difficult, if not impossible, to successfully complete a capital campaign without targeting those investor candidates who are most likely to invest. A low conversion rate from candidates to investors will burn money and time, with the possibility that resources will run out before obtaining an investment.
?Preparing for a capital campaign should be treated like an expedition. Great planning has the greatest chance for success.
?BELIZE REAL ESTATE & LIFESTYLES SHOW
YESTERDAY, Boris Mannsfeld and I hosted the inaugural Belize Real Estate & Life Styles show. The program covered a wide variety of reasons why Belize may be in anyone’s future for tourism, business, or retirement. ?
You may the show recording at:
SUCCESSFUL FUNDING SHOW
?LAST TUESDAY, Thomas Frey CSP was my guest on the Successful Funding show. Dr. Tom Frey is a world-class futurist. We talked about the future of funding. The conversation included the topics of change, tokens, cryptocurrency, anticipated changes at the SEC, and higher-quality access to information.
?You may watch the recording of the show at:
DON COHEN SHOW
?LAST WEDNESDAY, I was a guest on Don Cohen’s show. Our topic was crowdfunding. We discussed the future of crowdfunding, things people are doing right or wrong to gain the most from crowdfunding, and the challenges of building a ‘crowd.’
?You may view a recording of the show at:
SUBSCRIBE
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Karl Dakin, the Capital Coach
Dakin Capital LLC
Founder of CrowdMax
3 个月Karl Dakin, how much time and money will it take for your next capital raise is a vital question. I created a checklist asking the question are you ready to crowdfund to help manage expectations for my clients.
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3 个月This is going to be Amazing program thanks for sharing this best wishes to each and everyone their ?????????????????????????
Capital Coach | Stakeholder Investor Campaigns | Design, Stage, and Manage or Support | Reduce Time, Money, and Risk of Raising Funding | Increase Probability of Success! | Opportunity Management
3 个月How much time and money will take for you to be ready for your next capital campaign?